The Yellow Wallpaper -- essays research papers

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in Hartford, Connecticut on July 3, 1860. From the day of her birth, she was a woman ahead of her time. In 1890, she wrote The Yellow Wallpaper a story about a woman who was oppressed by her husband and her illness. This, Gilman’s most famous work, was written from her own experience in life. In 1884, Charlotte Perkins married Charles Walter Stetson and had one daughter. Following the birth of her daughter, she was greatly depressed and took a therapeutic 3 month trip to California. Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell was consulted in 1884 by Mr. Stetson to treat his wife for what was then called hysteria. Dr. Mitchell’s treatment involved complete isolation and the removal of anything that might cause "mental stimulation," and so Charlotte spend her 3 months isolated in a room in a large country estate, estranged from her daughter and husband. Following her divorce from her husband in 1894, Charlotte Perkins Stetson became a committed social activist and feminist. Later, in 1900, she married her first cousin, George Houghton Gilman. It is believed that this was a marriage of convenience, allowing Charlotte to concentrate on her writings by not being in a marriage that involved love and duty, but mutual respect. Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote primarily of the suppression of women. She experienced as a child many restrictions imposed by her mother, estrangement from her father because of her parents divorce at a young age, and the disappointm...